Anyone else find it troubling that Romney and his legal team appear to have gone to the Fishwrap of Record and Hearst Newspapers before telling all the actual delegates themselves of the proposed deal???

Update #2 : Freedomworks’ Michael Duncan reports a purge may now be underway:

just got off the phone with a concerned Florida activist, Laura Noble, who informed me that both of Florida’s Rules Committee members, Peter Feaman and Kathleen King, have been removed from the Rules committee and replaced with Romney-appointed delegates.

Clearly anticipating a grassroots backlash against the “compromise” on Rule 15 and the changes on Rule 12 has caused the Romney camp to preemptively replace delegates to ensure they have support on the Rules Committee.

It’s enough to make your blood boil. Please call your state’s Rules Committee delegates here and ask that they oppose the “compromise” on Rule 15, oppose the changes to Rule 12, and support the full Minority Reports on the Rules.

Update 2:50pm Eastern…The Rules Committee just voted 78-14 to accept the Romney-approved deal on Rules 15(16) and 12. There is now an effort to gather enough signatures to force a floor vote on the minority report. 25 percent of committee members are needed.

Apparently, the Virginia delegation was stuck on a bus and didn’t make it in time for the vote.

Update: 4:34pm Eastern Well, that was…something else. First, Maine delegates were replaced with Romney people. Then, rules chairman John Sununu and GOP Speaker of the House John Boehner stood on stage at the RNC to rule on the compromise rules report. No minority report was mentioned. When asked for yeas and nays on the report, the room seemed equally divided. Boehner forged ahead and approved the report over loud boos and calls of “point of order” from activists on the floor.

No vote on the minority report.

FW’s Dean Clancy observes: “If @SpeakerBoehner had been wielding the Speaker’s gavel instead of the GOP convention gavel, he wouldn’t have gotten away with that trick.”

And the show went on…GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn just declared that “this has been a great exercise in grass-roots” and that GOP stands for “Great Opportunity Party.”

At 2:00 p.m. today in Tampa, the Republican National Committee, led by Team Romney, is moving to shut down conservative grassroots activists. I’ve been on the phone with several individuals involved in the fight who tell me that the fight is not over, it is only just starting.

Specifically, the media is reporting that the rules fight is over because Team Romney is abandoning Ben Ginsberg’s effort to allow candidates to control delegates. Under an initial proposal, delegates would, in effect, be chosen by the presumed nominee’s campaign and not based on votes in the states and delegate selection processes in the states.

That issue appears resolved, but several people I’ve spoken to this morning make clear that Team Romney and the RNC establishment are using that compromise as a red herring to distract from two major rules change proposals that would decimate Republican grassroots and prevent upstart political campaigns.

Reports that the floor fight threat is over might be designed to calm the grassroots and get them to ignore what is coming at 2 o’clock.

The first rule to be proposed is one that would give the Republican National Committee the power to change rules between conventions with a three-quarters vote of the RNC. One source tells me, “With a Republican President, of course this is doable. Everybody will roll over if a President Romney asks them too. They’ll be able to get Ben Ginsberg’s proposal next year.”

In other words, if Team Romney prevails in this rules change, they don’t have to worry about Ben Ginsberg not getting his way today on the delegate changes. They’ll be able to do it later when the press and grassroots are not watching.

The second rules change would front load winner takes all primaries. Grassroots conservatives point to both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum as reasons to stop this rule. Had there been front loaded winner takes all primaries, neither the Gingrich nor the Santorum campaigns would have been able to get any traction.

“This is going to be a fight on the floor if they don’t back down. They have too much pride to back down and we’re going to humble them,” said one delegate to the convention.

Another tells me, “They’ve gotten social conservatives comfortable with the platform and now that they’re placated [Team Romney] is going to undercut them with this change.”

Speaking to one person familiar with the rules changes who supports them, I’m told a number of people support the changes because they see the current rules as efforts by Michael Steel to “liven up” the process, but all it did was run up the cost and drag it out. “Are we really going to keep the status quo because the guy who brought the convention to hurricane country in hurricane season thought they were a good idea?” the delegate asked.

The Rules Committee will meet at 2:00 p.m. today in Tampa to consider the rules changes. If they make it through the committee, delegates are telling me they promise a huge floor fight and there’s no guarantee Team Romney will get its way given the current make up of the delegates in Tampa.

Yesterday, Michael Duncan reported at Freedom Works on a brewing fight in the rules committee of the RNC. Essentially, the Rules Committee is trying to disenfranchise grassroots groups by allowing the party nominee to dismiss delegates and silence opposition. Buzz Feed explained this new rule:

The Republican National Convention Rules Committee voted 63-38 to approve a new rule allowing granting the Republican National Committee — and Mitt Romney — sweeping new powers to amend the governing document of the GOP.

The move came at the encouragement of Mitt Romney supporters on the committee, including Romney’s top lawyer Ben Ginsberg, who stressed that it would grant “flexibility” to Romney and the committee to adapt to changing political environments. The rule allows the RNC to amend the party’s rules without a vote by the full Republican National Convention. And it offers the Republican Establishment a new tool to keep at b[a]y Tea Party initiatives that threaten to embarrass or contradict party leadership and stray from a planned message.

The ramifications for grassroots activist and state GOPs are vast. This rule change would allow a candidate to select his or her own delegates, essentially allowing the nominee to get to choose those who nominate him instead of the states. This proposed rule change is starting to sound more like an Obama executive order.

Please Act Now–
Please locate the phone number of your State Republican Party Headquarters below, call them immediately, and tell them to oppose Romney’s new rules that strip grassroots activists of the ability to participate in the Republican platform process: